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  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: Hi, it's Thomas.

  • We're in Ghana, the internet capital of Africa.

  • If you ever wonder what happens to computers that you

  • donate to one of those green e-recycling programs, this is

  • basically it.

  • Kids from the north of Ghana come to this junkyard during

  • the summer to break computers down for scrap and also inhale

  • things that will probably end up giving them cancer of the

  • everything.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Most of the computers are only worth the

  • dollar or two of copper you can melt out of them.

  • But occasionally you harvest something useful, like a hard

  • drive or a processor, which you can sell at the little

  • flea market area next to the charnel grounds.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Ah, OK.

  • If you're an especially savvy shopper, you can actually put

  • together a full working computer here, one ready to

  • connect you to the fastest internet in all of Africa.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: Ghana puts a lot of stock in computers.

  • Their internet is directly linked to Great Britain's, and

  • they are billboards all over the capital, extolling the

  • virtues of personal computing.

  • Ghana already is sort of the top dog of West Africa, where

  • most of its neighbors have been plagued by war and

  • poverty since independence, Ghana's had almost 50 years of

  • stability and growth.

  • Right now they're hoping foreign investment will

  • bolster a computer industry here, which will permanently

  • make them the tech capital of West Africa.

  • So far it hasn't quite materialized, but what has

  • materialized is a thriving underground economy of fraud

  • and witchcraft called Sakawa.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: Sakawa dates back to Nigeria's oil boom in

  • the late '70s.

  • Ghanaians came into the country to take jobs in the

  • oil fields, and the locals taught them their favorite

  • pastime, the pen-pal scam.

  • The way it works is you write to someone in America or

  • England, tell them about an investment opportunity you

  • have, or just straight up ask them for money, and they send

  • it to you, and that's it-- scam over.

  • Eventually the Nigerian government deported all the

  • Ghanaian guest workers back home, and they brought the

  • pen-pal scam with them.

  • Then they combined it with magic.

  • THOMAS MORTON: As the internet took hold in Ghana, the

  • pen-pal scam was adapted to email.

  • Then scammers started hooking up with hackers online and

  • incorporating things like credit card fraud into their

  • scams, which became

  • increasingly complex and lucrative.

  • We kind of like the idea of making a living off the back

  • American stupidity, so we hooked up with a Sakawa gang,

  • led by a young Ghanaian named Sefa.

  • THOMAS MORTON: And now the term just gets used--

  • THOMAS MORTON: --for everything.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Sefa's a Sakawa success story.

  • He's used his old scam earnings to pay for business

  • school and has made a nice living for himself by Ghanaian

  • standards, although he still has to cross a stream of urine

  • every night to get into his house.

  • Sakawa comprises any number of online scams, but the majority

  • boil down to two basic types.

  • One, you pretend you're a sexy girl, convince someone to fall

  • in love with you, and then they send you money.

  • This is called the romance scam.

  • The other one is, you use a stolen or forged credit card

  • number to buy something online.

  • Then you have it shipped to someone in the West who sends

  • you money for it.

  • That one's called the shopping scam.

  • These two scams sort of work like templates.

  • Once you nail down the basics of them, you can start

  • combining them and adding all sorts of personalized details

  • until your mark feels like he's in the middle of some

  • elaborate international business scheme and not just

  • emailing back and forth with an African kid on a laptop.

  • The thing with Sakawa is while it's essentially free money,

  • it isn't easy money.

  • To find someone gullible enough to fall for your

  • shtick, you have to spend hours and hours emailing

  • hundreds and thousands of random addresses.

  • THOMAS MORTON: In America, frustrated gamblers will kiss

  • a lucky penny or pray to Saint Bernardino for help.

  • Likewise, frustrated Sakawa boys turn to religion when

  • they're down on their luck.

  • Only in their case, turning to religion means driving out

  • into the bush and paying a juju priest

  • for magic email powers.

  • [DRUMMING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: I'm definitely in Africa right now.

  • Juju is the local term for what fancy anthropology types

  • call traditional African religion.

  • In the same way that Hinduism is actually more or less a

  • collection of thousands of local deities and rituals,

  • juju is basically an umbrella for any West African religious

  • practice that isn't obviously Christianity or Islam--

  • or Scientology.

  • One aspect central to all forms of juju is that the

  • spirit world is morally neutral.

  • As in the gods don't give a shit what you and I do to each

  • other as long as they get paid.

  • This makes juju perfect for Sakawa.

  • If you want a leg up on the competition, you get a juju

  • priest to barter with the spirits, and then they give

  • you powers.

  • So the point of the juju ceremony we're dancing in

  • isn't to win converts or teach some sort of a

  • lesson like in church.

  • It's to demonstrate the priests ins with the spirit

  • world and advertise his powers.

  • Powers like channeling a god who can't be cut by knifes.

  • Or channeling another god, who likes throwing eggs.

  • Why is he throwing eggs?

  • THOMAS MORTON: Why, why does he throw them?

  • THOMAS MORTON: Oh.

  • Waste of powers.

  • The flip side to all this is once you make a deal with the

  • gods, you're bound to their terms.

  • If you piss them off or default on payment to your

  • juju priest, you end up with the opposite of powers, like

  • bad luck or AIDS.

  • On top of that the payment process itself

  • can be pretty tricky.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Westerners may find stuff like magic eggs and

  • tampon eating a little hard to swallow, but it's serious

  • business over here.

  • And not just with like superstitious bumpkins.

  • Even educated, cosmopolitan folks like

  • Sefa believe in this.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Besides, is of any of this really that much

  • weirder than shit like communion or circumcisions?

  • [CRYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: That part was a little rough.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: While Sakawa originally referred to a very

  • specific type of internet fraud mixed with juju, then it

  • went on to mean any internet crime involving witchcraft,

  • and now it's kind of evolved into its own full-blown

  • subculture.

  • So there's Sakawa music, Sakawa movies, Sakawa cars, a

  • Sakawa style of dressing.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Right now Ghana's in the throes of

  • Sakawa mania.

  • It's in all the papers and movie theaters.

  • It's bigger than rap.

  • I'm looking for Sakawa movies.

  • Oh, cool, here's number three.

  • If you want a glimpse at just how deeply Sakawa's penetrated

  • the public consciousness, check this out.

  • They're already up to "Sakawa Boys 8," and the series just

  • started last year.

  • We're on our way to meet a guy who makes films about Sakawa.

  • His name is Socrate Safo.

  • He's actually like the Martin Scorsese of Ghanaian internet,

  • fraud-based, gangster films.

  • The Ghanaian film industry, or Ghallywood, operates on kind

  • of a "more is more" principle of movie making.

  • They crank out hundreds of titles a year, most of them

  • shot on zero budget in as quickly as a couple weeks from

  • start to finish.

  • This speed doesn't do much for production values, but it does

  • allow them to respond to current events and to cater

  • their subject matter to their countrymen's exact interest.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Realistic.

  • Things drawn from real life.

  • -Ain't you got nothing better to do?

  • You asked for it.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • THOMAS MORTON: Socrate's movie touched a nerve in national

  • psyche and brought the issue of Sakawa to life for a lot of

  • Ghanaians who otherwise wouldn't have heard of it.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: Since being thrust into the mainstream,

  • though, Sakawa has drawn a huge outcry from government

  • officials, tabloids, and Christian preachers, whose

  • billboards in Accra are almost as ubiquitous as ads for

  • computer classes and juju priests.

  • THOMAS MORTON: While the furor over Sakawa dominates the

  • tabloids and pulpits, the focus is all on black magic

  • and blood debts and Sakawa boys turning each other into

  • goats and snakes.

  • None of it tackles the root of the problem, the fact that

  • over a third of young Ghanaians are unemployed, and

  • what jobs there are are filled by corrupt government

  • officials and their cousins.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Up until now the government's been more

  • than happy to turn a blind eye to Sakawa since it's basically

  • providing regular work for people that they can't.

  • There are also persistent rumors that Sakawa isn't just

  • limited to gangs of teenage delinquents, but is actually a

  • popular sideline among policemen, soldiers and

  • politicians.

  • THOMAS MORTON: Now that's Sakawa's threatening Ghana's

  • business reputation, the government's cracking down.

  • And them and the press have started a moral panic over it.

  • Just like gangsta rappers in the early '90s, Sakawa boys

  • have gone from objects of sort of cultural fascination to

  • scapegoats for all their country's ills.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • THOMAS MORTON: The end of Sakawa may not necessarily

  • bring juju Armageddon to Ghana, but it will leave a

  • bunch of angry young men without any source of steady

  • income, which is arguably even scarier.

  • On a lighter note, Ghana just discovered oil off its shore,

  • so maybe that'll solve all their problems.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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